My travel diaries
Monday 20 August, 2007 - Muztag Ata Base Camp, Xinjiang, China
Our final rest day at base camp, and much needed it is, too! By now our achievement has sunk in, and I wake up feeling incredibly elated - anything seems possible!
My body clock has changed now that it's no longer necessary to leave early in the freezing cold. I wake up well after the hour we arranged to have breakfast, sling on some clothes and leg it to the mess tent, hoping that there's still some food left for me.
Lethargic Ali
Ali is sitting sullenly outside the cook's tent. When I go into our tent to see if there's any food, David tells me to stick my head into the cook's tent and ask if there are any eggs. When I do this, Ali looks even more miserable, and it's only when I go back into our tent that they tell me what has happened.
Ali isn't the most energetic of individuals, and his normal mode of operation is to carry out the bare minimum of work required of him for the sake of appearances. While we've been away up the mountain, Ela and Steve have had to fend for themselves back at base camp, and they have barely been fed. When he was told by Ali this morning that there were no eggs left to feed the returning summit party, David was furious and threatened to withhold Ali's tip unless he found some. It took about ten minutes for Ali to go to one of the many remaining tents in base camp and return with enough eggs to feed all of us. Then David wanted to know whether any buses were available to take us to Kashgar tomorrow, two days earlier than planned. When Ali said there were none, David's face turned very red indeed, and it seemed as though steam was rising from his ears. He walked over to the big yurt in the middle of camp and found out some contact details for the local bus companies, which he passed on to Ali. A little while later Ali told us we would be able to go to Kashgar tomorrow, after all, but I could sense that this announcement didn't make David's ears smoulder any less vigorously.
The cook is now scraping out the barrel, but thankfully we have Orna to be resourceful on our behalf in the kitchen tent, producing some tasty dishes from the few remaining ingredients. After lunch, Steve, Scottish Jeff and I have a couple of beers in the big yurt which is the nearest thing base camp has to a bar. Steve remains as cheerful as ever, despite being stranded here for several days at base camp waiting for the rest of us. Later, I leave myself enough time to do my packing, which simply involves cramming as much kit as a can into my big red kit bag, to be sorted through in Kashgar, and we have a group photograph session in front of the mountain.
Shipton and Tilman's attempt on Muztag Ata
Our ascent is in my thoughts all day, and it's still hard for me to believe that everything went so smoothly. Having said that, it's all in the decisions and the preparation. When I compare our experience with that of Shipton and Tilman, who came very close to the summit 60 years ago, both the differences and similarities are striking. Like us, they intended to have three camps on the mountain, but finding the snow easy early on they decided to abandon the idea of a third camp, dump some of their gear and launch their summit bid from 6100m, the height of our Camp 2, instead. This turned out to be a mistake. Tilman and their sherpa - who, coincidentally, was also called Galjen - both had headaches and both Shipton and Tilman agreed they'd never been so cold on a mountain. Eventually Shipton was the only one of them fit enough to break the trail as the snow conditions underfoot steadily worsened.
Some of their descriptions sound very familiar. Tilman described how on summit day, "whenever we dared to look up our eyes met the same unbroken snow horizon, maintaining its unconconquerably rigid distance of two or three hundred feet", something I distinctly remember noting myself! Unlike us, however, they didn't have the flags to guide them, and they wandered for a long time in poor conditions without any idea of the extent of the summit plateau. But they can't have been very far away. Shipton noted that, "by about half-past two we had reached a point where the slope eased off into what was obviously the summit dome." Thinking back on our own summit day, I remember this flattening out occurred quite close to the top. Yet they staggered on for another hour without reaching the highest point and finally turned round to descend all the way back to their camp at 6100m. In the tent that evening Shipton took his boots off and discovered he had frostbite, and this put an end to any further attempt.
There are contrasts and similarities lower down the mountain, as well. On their ascent to Camp 1, Tilman observed that, "Shipton . had allowed his wife to relieve him of a sleeping bag and a cork mattress." In the light of what happened later, I can't help wondering mischievously whether Toby should also have asked his wife to carry some of his kit, though the fact that Shipton's wife went no higher than Camp 1 and spent most of her time at base camp, suggests she had more in common with Ela than Lindsay!
Future plans
In the evening the sherpas and Abdullah join us for dinner, and the talk turns naturally to 8000m peaks, now that some of us have been to 7500m. Of the 8000ers, Galjen has done Everest, Cho Oyu, Shishapangma, and even Makalu, a much more difficult one. I mention Cho Oyu as my next target, and David tries to persuade me to join the Gasherbrum II expedition that he is leading next year, which he tells me has a much more interesting trek in than Cho Oyu.
The cook tries to redeem himself by providing dish after dish for us. Unfortunately, it's dish after dish of stodge. Every time we think we've endured the last of it, another one appears. Cucumber dishes have now become a standing joke, and Steve asks if we can wave a white flag outside the door of our tent.Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Next
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